Archive

With a future move to Vancouver on the horizon (without a job or a place to stay yet in place), my needing to leave the house I’m currently living in right in the middle of Victoria Fringe, my pushing to spend valuable time with people in Victoria before my soft exit, and all my many theatrical ventures, life is full and busy and excellent.

Here’s what I have on my plate:

BFA: The Musical!

BFA: The Musical! – I am directing this show as part of the Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival. It is a fun, silly musical surrounding graduates with shiny new Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees coming to terms with the fact that having a degree does not make you immediately a ‘local celebrity’. The show comes complete with a brilliant seven person cast, a fine tech crew, original and local music, dancing, large props, and much silliness. It is a blast to work on.

William vs. The World is a hilarious, geeky adventure surrounding that narcissistic guy at the hobbies store who knows the world revolves around him. With Chuck, his trusty cactus, at his side, William is happy… until – to his horror – a woman falls for him, the All-Spark fails him, his life falls apart, and William loses himself in Bat Country. Through it all, he may become a better person. Maybe.

Previously work-shopped through UVic‘s Festival for Innovative and New Drama (FIND) and performed at this year’s UFV Director’s Festival, William vs. The World layers references to He-Man, Transformers, Spider-man, Serenity, The Ghost-busters, and pop culture with a frantic, manic character study of a man desperately clinging on to a life that may not be as grand as he suggests it is.

Sonnets for an Old Century – Completing my triumvirate of Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival shows, as of a few days ago, I am Stage Managing this show, written by José Rivera, a two-time Obie Award-winning playwright and Academy Award-nominated screenplay writer. Which is pretty darn sweet.

I am delighted to get to work again with so many great people in Victoria’s acting community, from Holly Jonson, to Mily Mumford, to Shaan Rahman, to Bill Nance, to Alan Penty (who also features in BFA: The Musical!).

Share his journey into Wonderland – and his descent into madness – in an overly, underly, and aroundly eager show full of storytelling, songs, audience participation, improv, silliness, gravitas, and grins. Whether it’s your unbirthday or your actual one, this is one show it would be mad to miss!
Tea is provided, but if you can, please bring your own cup.

PirateAdventures.ca – Acting and improvising as a pirate, leading children and adults on a pirate adventure based out of Fisherman’s Wharf. Currently only for one or two days per week.

Venue: Fisherman’s Wharf

Show Dates: Intermittent shifts until I leave town in early September.

Unsound Innocence – Acting as a lawyer in a shortish film by HTVBC– excellent and crazy Hungarians who run a non-profit film company in their spare time. We wrap shooting on Saturday, hopefully.

Venue: Film Festivals

Show Dates: Unknown!

Steinway Grand – Also with HTVBC, this one will be a huge and exciting acting challenge for me – acting in a two-hander film.

Venue: Film Festivals

Show Dates: Should start filming whenever I can jump back to Victoria in Sept/October, I assume!

Vancouver Young Playwrights Competiton / IGNITE! 2012, for The Romantics – I won 1st prize with my play, The Romantics. The prize comes with mentorship by a Vancouver playwright from November through March, and a performance in the festival come May.

Venue: Probably The Cultch.

Show Dates: Performs in May of 2012.

Auditions, auditions, auditions! – Auditioning throughout Vancouver and Victoria. Many ferry rides, trying to secure something, acting-wise, for beyond September. No luck thus far. Which is to be expected. I need to work more on my auditioning prowess.

Venue: Mostly Vancouver.

Show Dates: Never ends. NEVER, EVER, EVER.

The future beyond September is a blank slate, but the next month and a half will be a wild, exciting adventure! Writing, acting, directing, and stage managing for Victoria Fringe (spread over three shows)! Performing a DIFFERENT show for Vancouver Fringe (why, Andrew, why?)! Looking for work and a place to live in Vancouver!

For the past seven years (aside from the first summer), I have leaped straight from classes (Septembers through Aprils) to full-time jobs (Aprils through Septembers), with very little in the way of breaks. This time, however… well… there’s no co-op job to hold my summertime, and no school year hiding along the horizon. For the first time in 20 years (including kindergarten), I don’t have school coming up in a few months, and I haven’t even been working a full-time job.

So this month has been the closest I’ve had to a vacation in a long, long time. So of course I have done my darndest to fill it to the brim. Thought I’d write out a few of the projects I’m currently engaged with:

BFA Logo Mk1

BFA: The Musical! – Directing the show, complete with a brilliant seven person cast, music, dancing, large props, and much silliness, for the Victoria Fringe Festival.

Pays: Hopefully I’ll make my money back, with a bit of spare change? Also, to positively expose myself to the Vancouver theatre community would be invaluable. I plan on offering a lot of comp tickets to do this.

Pays: Dude, I get to be a supervillain. Oh, and I had a burger at a BBQ.

Timing: I honestly hope to be coming back to work with these fine people for years to come.

PirateAdventures.ca – Being a pirate, leading children and adults on a pirate adventure based out of Fisherman’s Wharf. Currently only for one or two days per week.

Pays: ~12.00$ per hour, plus tips. Also pays in sunburns wherever I neglect to apply sunscreen. Though the sun-bleached hair highlights are cool.

Timing: Ends in early September.

Sin City Improv

Victoria Walking Tours – leading tours around downtown Victoria.

Pays: Around 12.00$ per hour. Pay may depend on whether or not it’s a successful venture. Minimal hours per week.

Timing: Hasn’t started yet, should end in early September.

How Socrates Bought The Farm – Student film, I’m acting in it.

Pays: wih gratitude and a clip for my film reel. And experience.

Timing: Filming should begin, and wrap, over this upcoming week.

Unsound Innocence – Acting as a lawyer in a shortish film by HTVBC– excellent and crazy Hungarians who run a non-profit film company in their spare time.

Pays: They feed me, and there is a potential for royalties if it wins cash awards. Clips for my film reel.

Timing: Filming should wrap in July.

Henry V

Vancouver Young Playwrights Competiton / IGNITE! 2012, for The Romantics – I won 1st prize with my play, The Romantics. The prize comes with mentorship by a Vancouver playwright from November through March, and a performance in the festival come May.

Pays: a 600$ prize plus the above mentioned mentorship.

Timing: Performs in May of 2012.

Auditions, auditions, auditions! – Auditioning throughout Vancouver and Victoria. Many ferry rides, trying to secure something, acting-wise, for beyond September. No luck thus far. Which is to be expected. I need to work more on my auditioning prowess.

Pays: Pretty, pretty please?

Timing: Never ends. NEVER, EVER, EVER.

As you can see, outside of IGNITE!, my schedule beyond September (with the Vancouver International Fringe Festival) is still an inky void, and I’m not earning quite as much as I’m spending right now, but I have had a string of opportunities I’ve reached for, say yes to me in turn, so I am currently a happy, busy artist. Until September, at least, and more specifically, until my birthday, September 18th, the day the Vancouver International Fringe Festival ends. I’m content with being a working actor, writer, improviser, and performer as much as possible for now, with the hopes that the ‘paid actor’ part will come along in time. We’ll see.